The Case Western Reserve University men's tennis, ranked second in Division III, opened play at the NCAA Championship on Saturday morning, defeating Ohio Northern University 5-0 in the second round of the tournament at the Carlton Courts in Cleveland, Ohio.
CWRU improved to 22-4 overall with the win, while Ohio Northern's season came to a close with a 23-5 record.
The Spartans turned in another strong performance in doubles play, sweeping all three matches on Saturday. First on the board were senior Chaitanya Aduru and junior Michael Sutanto, who defeated Zach Beaschler and Drew Swisher 8-0 at third doubles. In the second doubles match, sophomores Sahil Dayal and Vishwa Aduru bested Andrew Cochran and Peyton Specht 8-1 to extend the Spartans' lead to 2-0, and at first doubles, junior James Hopper and graduate student Jonathan Powell added an 8-3 win to give the Spartans a three-match lead heading into singles play.
First-year Ansh Shah put CWRU a match away from clinching with an efficient 6-1, 6-0 win over Sam Sran at third singles. Chaitanya Aduru followed shortly thereafter with a 6-2, 6-0 win against Tristan Munteanu in the fifth singles match to secure the win for the Spartans.
CWRU was up a set on each of the other five courts when play was stopped. Hopper led Cochran 6-2, 1-1 at first singles, Vishwa Aduru was ahead 6-0, 4-0 at second singles over Thai, Sutanto was up 6-1, 5-1 at fourth singles over Specht and Powell led Beaschler 6-2, 4-1 at sixth singles.
With the win, the Spartans improved to 9-4 all-time in NCAA Tournament matches. This is CWRU's fifth NCAA Tournament appearance all-time.
The Spartans will now advance to the third round of the NCAA Division III Championships on Sunday at 12:00 p.m. CWRU will face the winner of the second-round match between Wisconsin-Whitewater and Kalamazoo, to be played later on Saturday. A link to follow live results for Sunday's third round match will be posted to athletics.case.edu and on the tournament website at https://athletics.case.edu/sports/mten/2021-22/2022_NCAA_Regional_Rounds.
